and some last impressions of Saint Vincent, where we had a stop over to collect our missing laundry and just had a little stroll to the marina Blue Lagoon
this booby used Altimate as a hunting platform when we were crossing from Bequia to Young Island /Saint vincent; he stayed with us for over an hour patiently waiting for his moments to come- he didn’t fly home hungryAltimate and fellow cruisers in the anchorage in front of Young Island the anchorage close to the marina Blue Lagoonat the marina BlueLagoonenjoying some drinksagain the marinathis fancy bus stop including electronic information impressed usa pretty rainbow at the anchoragethe “très chic” looking resort at Young Island
Martinique
Our sail to Martinique was nice but in the end we had to tack a lot as we couldn’t keep our planned course. Being very close haul the whole time and a strong current let us drift a little more west than we’d wished. At least that gave us a nice sail pass the famous “Rocher Du Diamant”.
arriving in Martinique and passing the rocklots of boats in the marina Le Marinstreet artrestaurant artthe small village of Le Marin, I was impressed by all the street signs – only in the beginning, that goes without sayingwe explored the surroundings of Le Marin the – not so pretty- churchthe view around the huge bay of Le Marin where we were anchored somewhere very tidy streets, so very much not Caribbeanbeautiful landscapes with yammi looking greens and here, I think, sugar cane plantsa bay at Schoelcher where we’ll meet some friends after x-massomewhere at the Trois-Iletsa possible anchorage at Trois-Iletsthe view over the bay of Fort de FranceGrande Anse d”ArletThe Diamant Rockthe Anse Cafard Slave Memorialvery impressive to see
Description of Anse Cafard Slave memorial:
“The memorial, which overlooks the sea, commemorates both the enslaved people who perished in a shipwreck off the coast of Martinique in 1830, and more generally, the tens of thousands of enslaved Africans who were taken to Martinique as part of the transatlantic slave trade. Arranged in a triangle the 15 stone figures are presented as abstracted, geometrized forms, stripping away any individualizing facial or bodily features. The figures face the ocean, leaning forward, their eyes cast downwards and their mouths open, as if vocalizing a scream.”
La Savane des Esclaves
Museum of local slavery history with huts and a Creole medicinal garden. It was interesting but somehow we did not take much pictures.
the brutal way of how slaves were often treated- unbelievable they made the museum, well the plantation look so pretty, I doubt that it was so much fun for all the slavesI liked the flowers – as always
The Banana Museum in Sainte Marie.
The Banana Museum provides more than 60 different species of the 300 species recorded in the world. They all have of course different names I can”t remember one… here some random pics of some of them
Somebody run aground at the near by reef
this crazy guy just sailed through the reef in the anchorage
Norbert and some other sailors tried to pull the mast down to hopefully get the boat off the reef. It took two hours to get him off the ground.
Anchorage Sainte Anne
we took a long walk along the coast line and found, next to a beautiful scenery lots of funny creatures
Sainte Anne, village and bayand the big anchoragea sundowner at a beach bar in Sainte Annethe beach of Sainte Anneyou better be carefulthe white tiled cemetery in the back ground “the Diamond”another beautiful beachand a cosy delicious meadowthe path next to the beachit did rain a lot lately…El capitano searching for the best paththe bay of “Petite Anse de Salines”here ” Grande Anse Des Salines”, thge huge bay where we moved to the following daycrab invasionthere were so many and they are actually kind of prettyEl Capitano had funit was a beautiful walkanother crab like fellow- this one would be great as a bait
the one-huge-armed crabs crowd
Grande Anse des Salines with Altimate
And another scenery walk further north the coast line
sometimes the scenery presented itself with a very rough coastlineand sometimes the scenery looked very cuddlypath markerfirst we had to walk through water then we could use the bridgeAltimate’s crewGrande Anse des Salines again in the background the diamond rocka couple of days we were alone in the bay
Back at Le Marin
due to the strike in Martinique the supermarket looked like this; very unfortunate for us
SY Altimate 